


Muddy Angels

by lyndysambora



Series: Muddy Angels [1]
Category: Bon Jovi (Band), Guns N' Roses
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:34:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21867916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyndysambora/pseuds/lyndysambora
Summary: Jon and Axl cross paths. Stuff ensues.
Relationships: Axl Rose/Jon Bon Jovi
Series: Muddy Angels [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1575442
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	1. Intoxication

**Author's Note:**

> This is from a Ficmas prompt on Rockfic, wherein the prompt asked for a story about Axl's "Bon Jovi can suck my dick" quote. I took liberties with the situation and setting, and this was the result.

_ **Summer, 1991** _

“Is that Jon Bon Jovi over there?”

It was maybe the last thing Axl expected to hear, and it instantly soured the six gallons of booze he had already poured down his throat. He didn’t look up.

“It better fucking not be.”

Duff chuckled. “I think it is, man. It’s your lucky d--”

The word was truncated by the punch Axl delivered him in the front of the shoulder. It was hard, and had to be painful, but Duff was still laughing. 

“Fuck you,” Axl hissed, but he flickered his eyes up. Across the hotel bar, a familiar shock of blond and brown hair was tipped slightly over a drink, a girl on each side, attempting to engage the man underneath in conversation. The girls were giggling and tossing their own hair, and leaning in close to him, but the man seemed uninterested in engaging them. 

A comfortable primal rage bubbled up into Axl’s narrowed esophagus. Christ. Guns were the ones on tour; fucking Bon Jovi didn’t even exist anymore. They’d crashed and burned under the pressure of touring and split up. And yet, here the cocksucker was in fucking California of all places, clear on the other side of the goddamn country from where Axl had heard he lived, showing up here at this _hotel_ of all places, and these cunts were gonna pay attention to him? 

“He’s a good-looking guy though, you gotta admit,” Duff said. “I think the chick in the red is gonna ride him right here at the bar--”

“Jon Bon Jovi can suck my dick,” Axl said, a little louder than he meant to, but the surge of adrenaline that prickled through him afterward was so satisfying it almost gave him a hard-on. He glared at the trio across the bar as all three of their faces raised in his direction. Each of the girls smiled a little before attempting to re-engage their prey, but Jon wasn’t paying them any attention at all now. He locked a stare with Axl for a moment, and his eyes were sparkling a little, something Axl could tell even through the bleariness of the alcohol and the distance and the low light. The bastard found it amusing. Or at least didn’t give a fuck at all. 

Then he stood up, effectively dismissing the potential pieces of ass, who took his place at the bar and ordered drinks of their own, probably something that would have umbrellas in it.

“Oh crap, here he comes,” Duff said in as low a whisper as being shitfaced and nearly choking with laughter would allow. Axl considered punching him again, this time in the stupid head, but he decided to conserve his knuckles.

“Axl Rose,” the asshole said, smiling and extending his hand like it was a fucking business meeting. Axl glanced down at the proffered hand and sneered. He wanted to say something poetically scathing to stonewall the guy before another word could come out of his girl lips, but since _fuck you_ was the only thing that came to mind, he remained silent and drained the rest of his drink. 

Without missing a beat, Jon motioned to the bartender with the rebuffed hand, and a swell of blood rose into Axl’s face, the noxious addition of humiliation to the anger. The bartender refilled both their drinks, and Jon raised his to his mouth. 

“I saw your show last night. You do great work.”

Axl snapped up off his stool and leaned in close to Bon Jovi’s face. “The fuck you know about work, huh? You fucking rode by on your pretty face, you piece of shit.”

The sparkle in Jon’s eyes darkened, and the corners of his mouth twisted down. “You have a face like a fucking choir boy, and the straightest hair I ever seen on a person in my life, and you’re gonna tell _me_ about getting by on my looks?”

The response snaked through Axl’s brain, momentarily muddling up all the ready-made insults and fighting words he had had on deck. He felt his body easing backward, just an inch or two, making room in the air between them for the next thing that came out of the prick’s mouth.

“Not to mention, having your ass out on stage all the time. I ain’t ever done that. I wonder how many more records I’da sold if I had--”

Axl’s hands burst upward, independent of conscious thought, and grabbed Jon by the shirt. “Whitebread motherfucker--”

But as soon as he said it, the familiar sensation of his own security closing in on him caused him to let go. 

Rolling his shoulders to right his shirt, Jon picked up his drink again. “You wanna talk this out in private?”

Axl smirked. “You serious?” He turned toward Duff, expecting more laughter, but Duff only looked surprised, his bleary eyes bouncing between them like he was watching a tennis match. Axl turned back to Jon. “What the fuck are you trying to pull, assmunch?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Jon said. “We can take it to my room, and you’ll even know where I am, in case you wanna come back and kill me in my sleep later. I got no security with me.” Then he smiled.

Axl felt the same surge of adrenaline that he’d felt when he’d announced that the guy could suck his dick. “Let’s go,” he said. 

Two security guys refused to take no for an answer on the subject of accompanying the pair into the elevator for the umpteen-floor ride. Classical piano music tinkled into the car, attempting to puncture through the sound of rushing blood that filled Axl’s ears, and it made Axl want to hit something even more. He wondered where the speaker was that was assaulting him with light music to write a composition paper by, and how much it would hurt to punch it hard enough to incapacitate it. 

He was further enraged by the fact that, when they arrived at the correct door, the security guys looked to Jon for their cues on what to do next. 

“Thanks, guys,” the dickhead was saying, “but we’ll be all right.”

“You fucking work for _me_,” Axl said, inwardly cringing a little at how childish it sounded. “Maybe I plan on killing his stupid ass and cutting him up in the bathtub.”

“We’ll be all right,” Jon said again, but it was clear from their posture that the security personnel, while willing to stay outside the suite itself, were unwilling to wander away from the immediate vicinity of the door.

Jon opened the door and motioned Axl in ahead of himself. Struck by how much smaller the suite was than his own, Axl forgot to be enraged for a split second. “This is it?” he scoffed. 

“It’s just me,” Jon said. “I don’t even know why I got the suite. Force of habit, I guess.”

Axl turned around, still taking in the size of the living room, and found himself face to face with Jon again. He jumped in surprise, and Jon shoved a forearm against his throat, pinning him to the wall. Axl thrashed against the restraint, but he could barely breathe. Making an attempt to knee the other man in the nuts, he realized Jon had twisted his body sideways to guard against just such a defense. 

“You fucking pussy,” Jon said. “I’m minding my own business and you’re gonna give me shit for no fucking reason, where you have security and a bunch of witnesses?”

“Fuck you,” Axl spat, feeling his pulse pounding in his head now. 

“Tough guy,” Jon said. “Try to cut me up, I beg you.”

“I can’t-- breathe--” Axl choked, and Jon made an impatient face before sliding his forearm down a bit, grinding it into Axl’s collarbone with a searing pressure that shouldn’t have hurt so bad after that many drinks. But at least he could breathe. 

“I was serious when I said you do good work, you asshole,” Jon said. “And about your pretty face. Fucking hypocrite.”

Axl struggled against the confinement again, one hand on Jon’s wrist, the other taking haymaker shots at the man’s head, but he picked the wrong hand to do which thing with; Jon subdued Axl’s fist with his free hand. Axl had also deflated his lungs in the process, allowing Jon to press deeper into his hold. 

“I give up,” he finally croaked. “Get off me.”

“You gonna try and kick me in the balls again?”

“No--”

“You gonna punch me in the head?”

“_No_\--”

“Fine,” Jon sighed, and slowly eased off Axl’s chest, his eyes like lasers into Axl’s own, waiting for any hint of movement or betrayal. A thrill of fear passed through Axl’s body, and for the first time since Duff had spotted Jon Bon Jovi across the hotel bar, Axl considered the idea that he might not get the satisfaction of besting the guy. 

He kinda liked it.

Resisting the instinct to rub his sore neck, Axl said, “Fucking prick.” Then, after the other man had backed up a little bit, and he felt reasonably sure he wasn’t going to get strangled again in the next few minutes, he added, “I worked for everything I have. Fucking sloppy, dirty grunt work. I didn’t get anything from my looks.”

“Bullshit,” Jon said. “And you know it.”

“How do you figure? You _know_ you’re pretty, with your thousand fucking bright-ass white teeth and your girl face. Shit, man, if I saw you across a dark club, I’d think you were a chick and try to pick you up.”

It was supposed to be derisive, but he realized after it was already out of his mouth the way it really sounded. 

Jon raised an eyebrow. “Is that a fact?”

“Fuck off, you know what I mean.”

“No,” Jon said, moving his body in closer to Axl’s again. “I don’t know what you mean. Explain it to me.”

Axl meant to tell him to _fuck off_ again, but he was so close now, the warmth of him was cutting through Axl’s clothing, above and beyond the heat of the alcohol. Axl just shook his head, for want of a working voice. 

“Explain to me why you’re so fucking hung up on my face,” Jon said, planting a palm against the wall above Axl’s shoulder. “And I’ll explain why I like yours.” He brushed his cheek against Axl’s temple, and though everything in Axl’s experience and brain cried at him that it was a trick, a set-up, a prelude to some kind of violence, he could feel himself getting hard anyway. 

Jon hooked a finger under his chin and lifted it up. “In the bonus round, I’ll tell you why I like your ass,” he said, before claiming Axl’s mouth.


	2. Infatuation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mind was _always_ more sentimental than the body. And Jon Bon Jovi was pretty persuasive, when you got right down to it.

Every muscle in Axl’s body froze, except for his lips and tongue, animated by a sudden lust so brutish it reduced him to pure instinct. Jon’s mouth was soft but aggressive, and tasted of expensive tequila, and when Axl finally pulled away, gasping for breath, the other man assaulted his neck with that hungry mouth, digging in with lips and teeth alike. Axl’s knees buckled. 

“Christ,” he panted. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“You want me, don’t you?” Jon growled into the curve between Axl’s neck and shoulder. “I can make that happen.”

“I don’t-- I--”

“Don’t deny it,” Jon said. “Your cock is fucking solid already.”

Axl attempted to pivot his body away, to hide the evidence of his craving, but there was no room. Jon shoved himself in closer, forcing the man’s thighs open, and rolled his hips against him. Axl groaned.

“Get off me,” he said, but it was weak, and even as he said it, he was pushing himself into the onslaught. 

“Is that what you really want?”

“Yes,” Axl said. The anger at the idea of surrender, mixed with knowing that refusing surrender meant no relief from the inferno his body had become, caused his stomach to clench down into a bitter fist.

Jon backed away, fixing him with that laser-stare again. “Okay,” he said. “Go ahead and go, if you want. But I’ll be here.”

He turned his back on Axl, and strolled in the direction of the master bedroom. There was a moment where Axl thought about how stupid of a move it was, turning his back. How Axl could have done anything in that moment-- jumped him, choked him, taken the vase full of wildflowers that sat on a decorative pedestal next to the door and crushed it over the back of his head. But he didn’t move. Instead, he watched Jon Bon Jovi disappear through the doorway of the bedroom, leaving the door open. 

And then he followed.

Jon stood next to the king bed, his back still to the door, his shirt already stripped off and tossed on the carpet. As he worked at the fastenings of his pants, he turned. He seemed unsurprised to see he still had company.

“Come over here,” he said.

“This is fucking ludicrous,” Axl said. He could hear the shaking in his voice as he said it. 

“Come over here. I wanna know what you feel like.”

Axl shuffled over to the place where Jon was, and stood a foot away from him, unsure what to do next. Unsure why he was still there, or why in the living fuck his body and brain were so chaotic, and doing things that made his heart skip with six different kinds of terror. 

When Jon cupped the back of his head and pulled him into another kiss, he leaned into it this time, wrapped his arms around the man, sinking his fingernails into the naked flesh of his shoulder blades. He was strong. It hadn’t been just the luck of the move that caused him to overcome Axl at the door-- he was genuinely strong. His particular brand of beauty was deceptive. 

The desire for him took Axl’s breath.

Jon pushed him down onto the bed and crawled over top of him, pinning his wrists up beside his head. “I’m game for a lotta things, but I ain’t sucking your dick.”

“Okay.”

“You been with a guy before?” Jon asked, leaning back on his knees and sliding his hands up under Axl’s shirt. His palms were cool against the hot skin of Axl’s stomach and chest, and it forced a shudder through Axl’s body.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

Jon smiled. “Your guitarist, right? The rhythm guitarist.”

Axl lifted his head in surprise, opened his mouth to question the knowledge, but Jon interrupted.

“I’ve been around the block, man.”

Letting his head fall, Axl said, “I think I’m losing him.” He didn’t mean to say it, especially not to Jon Bon Jovi, of all people, but there it was anyway, hanging in the air, so he added, “Things have gotten weird.”

Jon’s hands paused for a second. Then he moved down and unbuttoned, unzipped Axl’s jeans. “I know how that goes,” he said. He slipped his fingers beneath the loosened fabric and seized the other man’s aching cock. “Oh, this is nice.”

“Shut up.”

“Maybe if you weren’t so full of yourself, your friend wouldn’t wanna go.”

“The fuck do you know about it?”

Half-smiling, Jon said, “More than most.” He pulled Axl’s dick free of its confines and rubbed it lightly, up and down the full length. “Fuck it, though. It’s just you and me here tonight, right?”

“Ohh, god...”

“That’s a positive answer?” Jon said. Then he twisted himself around and sat back into the pillows that were still freshly piled up against the headboard. “Take off your clothes. I wanna watch.”

Chest still heaving, Axl stared at him, his mind catching up to the sudden change of plans. His dick was so hard it almost hurt. 

“Why do you get to call all the shots?” he asked, grudgingly climbing up onto his knees. 

“Cuz it’s my room,” Jon said. “And because you like it that way.”

“Who says?” Axl demanded, peeling his shirt up and off over his head. Jon’s eyes raked his exposed body.

“Your cock, for starters.”

Feverish blood rose into Axl’s face. It had been a long time since he’d allowed the stinging claws of embarrassment to sink into him during a sexual encounter. And since that time, he’d done a hundred things, some he wasn’t even all that turned on by, just to prove to himself he held dominion over that ancient shame reflex. He was damned if he was gonna let this fucker kindle it in him again.

He wrapped a hand around his dick and stroked it. “This cock?” he purred, and for the first time since entering the suite, felt a smile nipping at his lips as Jon’s eyes widened.

“Yeah,” Jon said, his voice low. “Is that how you like it? All soft and slow like that?”

“I like a little of everything,” Axl said.

“Show me what else you like.”

“Uh-uh,” Axl chided. “You first.”

Jon considered the challenge for a moment, before saying, “Mm. All right.” He crawled half the length of the bed to where Axl waited, and drew up before him, holding his face as if to kiss him. And then he shoved his palms into the other man’s chest, sending him down on his back again. Before Axl had a chance to right himself, Jon had his arms wrapped up under and around the man’s knees, fixing his legs up against his own shoulders, and pulling his ass in close to him. He paused, nuzzling Axl’s calf with his cheek, like he’d done his temple before kissing him. 

Axl closed his eyes. Izzy was the only one who had ever had him this way, and the imbecile part of him that still insisted on being just a little sentimental at times had, at some point, become convinced that that was the way it would stay. But Izzy was only his partner in theory anymore, and the truth was, Axl’s body missed him in a completely different way from how his mind missed him. 

The mind was _always_ more sentimental than the body. And Jon Bon Jovi was pretty persuasive, when you got right down to it. 

Besides, he was already yanking Axl’s pants to his knees. 

“You gonna fuck me?” Axl groaned. 

“Yep.”

Axl gasped as Jon took his mouth again, pushing his body down against the binding of the wadded-up blue jeans between them, shoving Axl’s knees up into his chest. Jon’s still-clothed groin rubbed against his naked ass, gentle at first, then harder, deeper, and Axl moaned into the kiss, tried to break away for breath, but Jon followed. 

Finally, Axl pushed Jon’s face away with his hands, and lay panting. Jon smiled down at him, still undulating against him. “I’ve been wanting to take this pretty little ass for a long time. I knew you liked it.”

“Then quit fucking around, and take it,” Axl said. 

Jon smirked and sat back on his knees, letting Axl’s legs down for the moment. “You talk pretty hard for the guy on the bottom.”

A dozen responses came to the front of Axl’s brain, but before he could say anything, he cracked a smile. It pissed him off as much as it amused him. “Can we just get on with it? I’m dying here.”

To his shock, the dickhead smiled back. What looked like a genuine smile. “Fine,” he said, rolling his eyes, and jumped off the bed. 

Axl stared at the ceiling for a minute, noticing his head was steadier than he would have expected it to be for as much as he’d had to drink tonight. His vision was sharpening already as it passed over the crown moulding, to the gigantic windows that had all their curtains closed. He was just starting to wonder if Jon had any booze up here, when the man returned to the bed. 

“Why are you still dressed?” Jon said, pushing his own pants down and off onto the floor, along with his shoes and socks. 

Axl shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Yeah,” Jon said, rolling a condom onto himself. “I want you fucking naked. All the way naked. I wanna see it all.”

Pulling a lower leg up across the opposite knee to unlace his boot, Axl said, “You got a thing for feet, do ya?”

“Yeah, I got a thing for everything. Get it all off.”

A buzz passed through Axl’s body as he finished undressing, laying himself out raw and exposed for the other man’s viewing pleasure. Jon stood over him, taking in the sight for awhile, before saying, softly, “Spread your legs.”

Axl complied. 

Jon gazed at him a few moments longer, then, snapping out of the reverie, filled one of his hands with lubricant. “You’re even prettier than I thought you’d be.”

“Shut up,” Axl breathed, as Jon crawled between his legs, and opened him with his fingers. Axl writhed a bit under the sudden intrusion, attempting to find a better position, but there was none. 

Jon grazed his lips over the man’s jawline, his chin. “You’re tense. Are you afraid of me?”

“No.”

“Relax.”

“I’m trying.”

Jon sat back and pulled Axl’s leg up onto his shoulder with his free hand, then motioned for the man to do the same with the other leg. Axl did as he was instructed, and his head swam with the intoxication of obeying him without question. He allowed his legs to be pushed up close to him again, and the tension eased, as Jon manipulated him with his fingertips. Slowly at first. Then faster and harder. Deep and rhythmic. Knowledgeable. 

Axl’s back arched as waves of pleasure rippled through him, and he was barely aware of Jon saying, “That’s a good boy.”

“Don’t stop--”

“Mmm.”

“Please--”

“What’s in it for me?”

“I’ll fucking kill you if you stop--”

“Say my name.”

“No--”

“Say my name.”

“Oh god--”

“Say my name.”

“Oh god-- fucking _Jon_,” Axl screamed, the climax rolling through him like thunder.

Somewhere in the distance, through the chaos his thoughts had become, he was aware of the pounding of his security guys on the suite door, and one of them yelling, “What’s going on in there?”

“Go away!” Axl shrieked. 

“We’re fine!” Jon added, nearly snorting with sudden laughter.

And then, spreading and scissoring his fingers in Axl’s ass, he said, “Your mouth is always getting you in trouble,” before withdrawing his hand and plunging his cock into him. 

Axl sucked in a sharp breath. “_Fuck,_” he exhaled, wrapping his legs around Jon and pulling him in to the hilt. 

Arms trembling, Jon sank to his elbows above him. “God, you feel good,” he whispered. “I could fucking live in here.” 

That creeping embarrassment wound its way up into Axl’s chest and throat again, squeezing him from the inside. The raw honesty of it, especially from the lips of someone like Jon Bon Fucking Jovi, sent a weakness through Axl’s legs that he could feel even lying down. 

“Shut up and get yourself off,” he said. “I ain’t got all night.”

Jon grinned at him, and then bowed his head for another long kiss as he rolled his hips.


	3. Capitulation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon stood up and pierced Axl with that stare again, and this time, Axl met the intensity of it. There was something there, the thing Jon had wanted to say earlier, and couldn’t, and Axl was gonna hold his eyes and wait for it like a man.

The clock indicated he had been in Jon’s suite for over an hour and a half, and Axl sighed. He was still flat on his back-- a position from which he had not moved since Jon had had his way with him-- but he was stretched out now, taking up far more than half of the oversized bed. Jon stood by the window, still fully naked, smoking a cigarette and staring at the closed curtain as though he was taking in the scenery below.

After they had fucked, they’d laid side by side and actually talked. About the loss of bandmates, both potential and already happened; about management they couldn’t abide any longer; about shitty childhood experiences. They had talked about music, and the craving for it, and what it was like to choose the love of it over eating in the early days. How, later, suddenly being able to eat anything-- and any time-- you wanted could fuck with a person’s head. And there had been a minute there when Axl had thought that maybe Jon deserved what he had, that maybe he _had_ worked for it. After all, he and his bandmates had crawled through the same shit and mud toward success, except they’d done it without succumbing to the shadow passages of crime and addiction. And Axl wasn’t sure whether that made him respect Jon Bon Jovi, or hate his fucking guts all the more.

Either way, he’d spent enough time in the guy’s suite, so he rolled himself up and off the bed, and pulled his pants on.

Jon glanced up. “You leaving?”

“Yeah.”

Turning back to the curtain, Jon said, “Okay,” and put the cigarette between his lips again. 

After dragging his boots and shirt back on, Axl stood at the end of the bed, wondering if he should say something to officially announce his departure, or just leave. He had already said more in the last ninety minutes than he had ever imagined he would say to this person, and he wasn’t sure there was anything he could add to it. Or wanted to add to it. His mouth _did_ get him in trouble, quite a bit. 

He was almost to the front door of the suite when Jon called after him. 

“Hey, wait.”

Axl stopped and turned, waited with his back to the wall roughly where he had been nearly strangled by the same man who was now strolling toward him, exposed and unashamed. 

“I wanna give you something,” Jon said. 

“A crushed larynx?” Axl said. “You didn’t quite get it the first time.”

Jon snorted softly. “Nah. And your larynx is fine, you fucking baby.” He drew up close to Axl and laid a hand at his hip, his fingers playing along the edge of his waistband. “It made a whole lotta noise back there in the bed.”

“Fuck you,” Axl said, but he was smiling already. “Just give me whatever it is so I can go.”

He forced himself to meet Jon’s gaze, something that had become progressively harder for him to do as their time together had gone on. The other man’s lips were parted like he was readying to say something else, but didn’t have it in him to say it. Or maybe he just didn’t know what he wanted to say.

He dropped to his knees instead.

Axl closed his eyes and listened to the sound of his own heart pumping agonized arousal behind his ribs as Jon unfastened his pants again. Laying his head against the wall, he attempted to steady his knees. The feel of Jon’s hands on him caused him to startle a little, and he looked down. 

Jon was looking up. “You win,” he said.

“What?”

“Your guys are still together and mine aren’t. You win.”

With that, he sank his mouth over Axl’s cock. 

Instantaneous horror bloomed like black ink in water inside Axl’s mind. For years, he had wished vague forms of ill upon Jon Bon Jovi and his bandmates, and there had been outright glee for him when he found out the band had gone on indefinite hiatus. But in less than two hours, Jon had become a person to him, flesh and bone and blood, and if “winning” meant the other man being broken, it wasn’t worth it.

But the thought was tempered by coarse desire-- Jon may have been a person now, worthy of some measure of respect, but he was fucking _incredible_ with his mouth, Jesus _Christ_...

Axl let the guy suck him, but he pushed him away before he came, and Jon finished him with his hand. It was a good compromise, Axl figured, one he could live with later, when his mind would return to it, and he knew it would. A thousand times over, evaluating his actions to determine if he’d done the right thing. Or, more accurately, the rightest thing he could endure in that moment. 

Jon stood up and pierced Axl with that stare again, and this time, Axl met the intensity of it. There was something there, the thing Jon had wanted to say earlier, and couldn’t, and Axl was gonna hold his eyes and wait for it like a man.

For all the intensity of the gaze, the voice that came out of Jon was small and hoarse. “Don’t lose him,” he said. “You won’t know how important he is ‘til he’s gone.” 

It felt like a physical blow, somewhere in the solar plexus, and Axl nodded, silent. Jon turned and strolled back to the bedroom, and this time he closed the door. Axl fastened up his pants and left the suite with as much insouciance as his whirling insides would allow.

Back down in the bar, he was both surprised and not surprised to find that Duff hadn’t moved from his spot. He’d hoped everyone would have found something (or someone) better to do by now, but he figured his “altercation” with Jon Bon Jovi would catch their attention more so than the millionth faceless groupie of the tour. Slash was with Duff now. Izzy, of course, was nowhere in sight.

Axl took a breath and pulled his shoulders back, feigned the cockiness that made his strut possible as he approached his bandmates. 

“What the fuck, man?” Slash said. “What happened?”

The laughter had already begun, so Axl forced a smile. 

“He fucking sucked my dick, man, what do you think happened?”

“Fine, be an asshole.”

More drunken laughter. Axl ordered a drink, slipped into a spot amongst them, and wondered if Izzy was still awake.

\----------------------------------------

Jon stood in front of the full-length mirror and stared at himself. He’d been told hundreds, maybe thousands, of times in his life that he was beautiful, in one way or another. When he was younger, he kind of liked the attention, was kind of proud of it, even if he never quite believed it. These days, it was getting to be a yoke on his neck, the label. _Pretty, handsome, cute, sexy._ It all meant the same thing to him-- we see your outside, and that is enough for us.

Maybe it _was_ true. Maybe the band had skated by on that. At least to an extent. Maybe, if he and the other guys had been born ugly, people wouldn’t think something like “Livin’ On A Prayer” was so damn catchy. Maybe the hook was their faces.

He raked his fingers through the hair that cascaded around his shoulders and wondered if he had the balls to cut it off. It had been long for more than half his life. It was part of his identity now. 

He sighed. 

Then he returned to the bed, sat down on the edge of it, and picked up the telephone receiver.

**END**


End file.
